The Girls of Madison
...is... Synopsis We need a montage... Team America jokes aside, a lot of establishing shots of the town of Madison and the Madison Center flood the screen for a few minutes, as well as Najwa and other girls commenting on a new arrival. They debate whether she's black or Mexican, and Heidi informs audiences that it'll be far from fun times for her regardless. Another girl can be heard complaining to staff about others irritating her; vowing to go all pencil-stab-happy like the alien hordes in a scene in The Faculty if she's pushed too much further. Najwa is up first, asked about the daily routine. She essentially states that after waking up, girls get a shower, then get fed breakfast. The shower stalls look fairly standard for a college campus, or for the gym showers of a poorly-funded inner-city high school built in the early 2000s. Brianna is shown eating what looks more like a lunch menu at the worst inner-city school cafeteria ever. It's essentially the same as a mid-semester food menu at a college campus cafeteria in the mid-2000s, when the students are stuck with whatever they've got and there are no parents around that the school needs to impress, and the only alternative is to walk to McDonald's or KFC (which are even less healthy.) Only, they sometimes eat out of styrofoam trays. So forget about microwaving if your food gets cool. Brianna's green plastic tray is demonstrated as having Gordon Food Service-quality mashed potatoes and gravy on top of a slice of turkey or pork that looks like it was stolen from a Swanson Hungry Man package. She has peas and cornmeal next to it, and what looks like low-quality rice covered with a pasteurized cheese product that fails to meet even Velveeta's standards. One other item that's fairly nondescript in the shot is apparently a cake of some sort - if it were whipped together last minute by a lazy baker at the local Wal-Mart. Since the girls are up by 7 to eat and class is at 8 and goes until 3:30, it makes sense to give them a high-protein meal. After all: if they were like civilians scrimping by and eating cereals with paint thinner as a preservative and covered in cinnamon and sugar, their blood sugar levels would take a nosedive before Ramos could finish class. Can't have sleepy prisoners in a math class, can we? Ramos is shown teaching the girls a 2-D graph of axes, with a linear slope graph of descending y values and ascending x values. The exact y vs. x value equation is hard to discern from that distance, and the shot goes by too fast for the casual viewer to even discern anything meaningful from the dry erase board. (Thanks, editors!) After classes, the girls get gym time - and are then allowed a little time in the day room to hang out, before they have to eat dinner, attend meetings, and then get ready for bed to begin the cycle all over again. Taryn chimes in that backbiting and gossip are a normal part of the culture there, and that it's hard to not get sucked in. In other words, 4Chan meets Facebook meets Twitter meets DeviantArt...on crack. Sprinkled with some Tumblr for good measure. Surprised? Najwa also chimes in that drama queens make her sick. But there's no avoiding them. Brianna finally admits that if not for Madison, she'd "probably be dead." Meet Galipeau John Galipeau, the superintendent, is shown driving to work. He tells the film crew that he's been working with kids "for close to 20 years," and enjoys it. Which makes his sudden departure from LaPorte after season 2 quite a shock. But that's neither here nor there for this episode. He elaborates on what kind of girls he gets to oversee. From every nook and cranny of the state. Charges of drug possession, armed robbery, robbery, breaking and entering, aggravated assault, and weapons charges. Trying to explain classified federal-level toys to local authorities to avoid arson charges or or accidental poisoning of a million-dollar dog are not on his list, but why rule anything out? These girls have done a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and...that's enough Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana for one session. John continues that the girls are usually there to complete "a program," as opposed to being pre-assigned a definitive number of months or years of sentence to serve. Programs include a standard education, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, etc. Galipeau talks about the Promise High School, and how it ranks with other juvenile centers in Indiana on all the criteria that the state sets forward. Madison under his tutelage consistently out-performs the other centers. Which raises valid questions about why the regular schools are trailing so far behind a random prison, and are arguably more dangerous places for children to be. But...that's enough redpilling for now, Mr. Anderson... ''Dead Inside: Weak'' Volleyball These girls don't speak Japanese, nor do they play all that well. But volleyball is the happening sport in Unit 6. Don't expect a video game adaptation any time soon. Even if a Madison-themed video game does sound like a radical and possibly cool idea. But as long as the simulators keep looking like Prison Architect or Prison Tycoon...not happening. We're introduced to Brianna Guerra, who arrived in January of 2017. Other girls make one thing clear about Bri: no filter. If she has something to say, ambiguity of intent becomes a rare hidden gem beneath a pile of rocks you have to chip away at feverishly, like Daniel Plainview. Frazer attempts to plug Bri's future YouTube channel, "Thug Princess," but he gets the words backwards. He mentions her propensity to run her mouth, a main source of problems for her. According to Bri, a major source of her angry outbursts and thug attitude stem from inability to cope with parental abandonment. Absent weasel for a father = angry girl. Got it. She went full hood, engaging in armed muggings and even a high-speed police chase, thinking she was OJ Simpson. Drugs were involved, "of course!" She gets defensive about her sense of identity, saying she doesn't want to change her personality solely due to a desire to appease someone else. That she lacks anything positive or worthwhile to wrap an identity around is the point she seems to be missing. How Nutty are they? Brianna is careless with her Nutty Buddy bar, and a friend of hers eats it. That's considered "trafficking," and Lewis writes Bri up for it. Bri thinks that's outrageous. Candy bars are crack, apparently. Brianna explains that the staff - who are supposed to be shining examples of role model behavior for the kids - are often anything to the contrary. "Vain, childish, and petty," she states. Various clips in later episodes seem to confirm her suspicions, that not all staff are up to par with standards for staff behavior. Elsewhere, the Madison Courier had articles about staff that were fired and charged for sexual misconduct involving the girls, so this is entirely believable.[http://fav.me/dcmmcae Drop-In: The Real and Fictional Monster of Madison] Bri does herself no favors, however, by referring to Lewis as "Humpty Dumpty." She sets herself up to have a big fall, if anything. Edrington and Lewis begin discussing in whispers about turning Bri over to Minnick, but are loud enough that Bri can overhear. Bri calls them out with her equivalent of "you know I can hear you, right?" Edrington retaliates by telling Bri to follow her into the hallway "to discuss it." See, it turns out that the students are apparently not allowed to learn sign language. So passing notes is the only way to communicate certain sensitive information. Except, passing notes isn't allowed either. In fact, in the Centipede and Fire Saga, Nancy has to play "pass the potato" with her spec notes between a security officer and the other Last Legs girls just to let Candi see her renders for the Forfica Mk. I Ciem suit, because passing the sketchpad directly to Candi would have constituted "passing notes" directly among students. Strange rules, but they are in a prison. Passing love letters could just as easily be passing on sketches for a superhero costume - or blueprints to where dangerous stuff is kept on campus. You can never be too careful. Lewis decides to circle around the girls like a vulture, and discovers a note that a girl wrote to Bri in Bri's cell. Suddenly, Bri finds herself engulfed in write-ups and conduct reports. She points out to Edrington that the letter contains perfectly harmless information, and feels the staff are picking on her. She tells Edrington that she thinks Lewis is a jerk; but gets a reply back of: "We're just following orders." She should probably re-watch A New Hope, if she thinks she's surrounded by Imperial Storm Troopers. Han Solo at least knew how to keep them suckered for a few minutes. Bri...sabotages herself with one indiscretion after another. Another officer can be heard on comms stating she has "three J3s" to report Unit 6 "to the back of the room." No effort is put forward to explain what a "J3" is. Unit what, now? Galipeau explains that there are six housing units for the juvenile section of campus. However, the buildings 1-3 have since become special. General population, due to dwindling enrollment numbers, are now down to only buildings 5 and 6. Girls are locked in cells 1 or 2 girls at a time to a cell. They don't scrunch everyone together in a giant room, like in some facilities. In season 2, it'd be the exact opposite housing situation. Just call an electrician already! It's almost the end of another school day; and around 3:45 PM on a Wednesday, it's time for Community Meetings. The girls head into the library around 3:30, as can be evidenced by a clock in the background if anyone looks at the screen very carefully and squints. According to Heidi, this is where Galipeau learns from the girls if they are lacking anything essential. Aubrey alerts Galipeau that her unit's showers have inoperative ventilation systems, leading to it getting harder and harder to breathe whenever the girls attempt to take showers. She struggles to specify the vents, saying the "fan" isn't working. "Inoperative ventilation" are apparently two words not in Aubrey's vocabulary. Galipeau gets very confused by this. Honor Squad Next, Galipeau introduces audiences to the Honor Squad system implemented in 2016, whereby which girls who performed exceptionally well in their school grades and general behavior were rewarded with wearing a burgundy shirt. This was in contrast to the standard indigo - that was just 19 leftward hue steps and 47 leftward luminescence steps in a Photoshop HSL image tweaker tool away from resembling the navy blue hue of a standard post-2015 Meijer employee polo shirt (and lacking the cool badge, obviously.) Rayes is rewarded with a burgundy shirt. The girls inform camera crews that while they may get one for incredible performance, maintaining a burgundy status is highly difficult. Most girls screw up and lose theirs within two weeks. Hothead Herself Next up, the crew give us a look into Chrissy Hutchinson - a gangbanger wannabe that had been at Madison for over two years. She had become really good at going through the motions and telling the staff what they wanted to hear - realizing that this was the only way she would ever get the chance to go back to gangbanging ever again. One would hope she'd learned something after two years at the place! Even the big-talking Bri, however, could tell that there was something definitely not right with Chrissy. Miss Put-on-a-Show to Impress the Guards was very different when no one was over her shoulder, and Bri had seen enough of the real Chrissy to know a rotten egg when she saw one. Bri liked to put on a show; but even Big Bad Bri had limits. And Chrissy...was another story. Aubrey chimes in that Chrissy can be sweet...when she chooses to be. However, Frazer injects that it doesn't take much to get Chrissy angry. And when she does blow up...it's atomic. Putting the cart before the horse, Sarah reasons that being at Madison for two years made Chrissy "go crazy." More likely, being that crazy to begin with ensured Chrissy had to be there that long, but same end result either way. A cliche if ever there were one; Chrissy got led astray in the beginning because of her wayward father. Her mom was a nerd who fell for a thug, long story short. Chrissy wondered what was such a big deal on the streets, that her dad would choose that over her. And...got sucked into the underworld very quickly. She'd start fights and sell drugs just because. She smoked the Devil's weed until she became a conscience-devoid sociopath. Breaking into cars and home invasion were of no consequence to her. She was even facing battery charges. Because beating others to a pulp because you could became fun in her eyes. Police tried house arrest; but she would cut her bracelet like a complete moron and escape. As opposed to hacking the bracelet. Or, you know, getting a decent hobby, like Shia LaBeouf had to in Disturbia. (Heck, even Ant-Man found a smarter solution, and that second film was littered with complete nonsense!) An interview from January of 2015 had Chrissy writing off her fate as "well, I guess maybe God is trying to tell me something, but whatever." Minnick shows off Chrissy's pile of paperwork over two years' time: victim empathy worksheets, family relations worksheets, anger management worksheets, and probably more worksheets than anyone cares to say "worksheet" for outside of [[w:c:robotchicken:Robocop Teaches DARE|a bad RoboCop parody in an episode of]] Robot Chicken."Catdog on a Stick." (episode.) RobotChicken. Stoop!d Monkey. June 15th, 2014. Galipeau refers to her as "having a very tough outer shell." But once you crack it, "she's not such a monster underneath." A pity the streets interpreted that as: "vhee needz to staht over, vahnd givz her an even hahder shell!" But...that's for later. Crawley, unlike a lot of the others, sees through the horsehockey. Chrissy did "the bare minimal," according to Crawley, to bump up her social status by getting the burgundy. However, Chrissy then "immediately went out of her way to lose it." She was supposed to report for demotion; but went into another room to draw a picture and resist. Crawley confronted her on this in the day room, and Chrissy threw out every single excuse she could think of to not cooperate. A failure to communicate Faith Holbert tries to convince Chrissy to cooperate and not be stupid. But stupid won out that day. Chrissy got herself put in MAC, the solitary cells unit. She put up a Cool Hand Luke-style la résistance...over a shirt! And set the wrong example for other girls by doing so. This could not be tolerated. Despite Crawley's own shortcomings elsewhere, cracking down hard on Chrissy here proved to be the right move. Unfortunately...getting the situation under control led to staff concluding that the film crew would be in the way. They'd have to come back tomorrow. The staff especially didn't want anyone to see Chrissy's meltdown - which included her throwing things like a four-year-old throwing a tantrum. Or a Hillary supporter when someone with a MAGA hat walks into their store to buy vape. (But now we digress.) Again, this was over a shirt. And a slice from Pizza Hut that she'd no longer get. A possible justification for chain gangs in Indiana? Possible. But...that didn't happen. Still, t'would have been a fitting fate for Miss Burgundy wannabe. A total...Pretender (cue screaming Roger Daltrey CSI: Miami moment.) Other sections Featured cast Emphasized inmates Staff featuring Guest stars Music Trivia * In the Centipede and Fire Saga, James Galloper (the Galipeau analog) developed the idea of the burgundy shirts for the honor squad in Ciem: Ash Cloud. Yet, Bruce Almin (a merger of Michael Caine with Tim Greathouse) was the one who implements it first in 2016. ** Candi only doesn't qualify for it due to outside interference from SCALLOP director Darius Philippine, who has it denied to her out of spite - and so her release date wouldn't get moved up, ever. Under the Kirby Act, SCALLOP determined how many times Candi had to repeat her program before it "counted," and she would be considered "release-worthy." ** While angry at Darius reneging on his promise to leave her family alone if she agreed to go to Madison and take the fall for all those other parties' incompetence regarding what happened in Gerosha (Boonville) in 2015, Candi cooperates with her release date being tampered with and her achievements disregarded for only two reasons: *** 1) In order to oversee the Last Legs operation to maturity and have a safe base to operate her Ciem operation from (as Almin was very supportive of Candi's Ciem operation); and *** 2) to avoid having to re-enroll at Gerosha High School for as long as possible. **** This is because while Candi didn't love staying at Madison, she much preferred it to Gerosha High. Unlike the real-life Boonville High School, Gerosha High's new board of education had turned the school into "a hellhole," according to some students. By her reasoning, Madison was "not great; but still a dramatic improvement" over her former regular high school. Her fellow student body at Madison were "just dumb and angry; but not driven psychotic by kook fringe left-wing politics," as was her understanding of Gerosha High. ** As such, it can be said that making Almin central to the narrative of Ciem: Ash Cloud before knowing about when Galipeau took over for Greathouse created some considerable friction in aligning the story's world and continuity with real MJCF history. Galloper / Galipeau is, however, correctly identified in the 2018 timeline of The Gerosha Chronicles post-''Ciem: Caldera'' as being the warden of LaPorte. However, Candi is shown to have been released in late January of 2018 to live with the Trenson family in Gerosha - who have adopted her. Thus, Galloper / Galipeau becomes mostly irrelevant to Candi's life story in 2018 afterward. He is never mentioned in the Sodality: Instigation flashbacks, as Candi bonded with Almin instead - who has since retired post-''Caldera''. References See also * Season 1 * The Girls of LaPorte Category:Season 1 episodes